Abstract

Casting brilliant new light on some of the most beloved poetry in the Western tradition, Romantic Presences is a set of meditations in prose and poetry on a wide range of images from early 19th-century English writing. Some of the images are familiar Romantic symbols - the skylark, the nightingale, the sigh. Others are literary personages of the Romantic period - from Robert Burns to Coleridge - who have become legends and images. Still others are almost entirely new because they come from the little explored realm of women's writing. Together they help recover the power of Romantic poetry for a new generation of devoted readers.